Hollinger Corp 
pH8.5 



E 768 

• B96 

Copy 2 



The United States as a World Power 

AN INTERVIEW WITH 

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 

BY 

EDWARD MARSHALL 



Reprinted from The New York Times of May 16, 191 5 



£ 76? 

£?6 



ADDITIONAL COPIES MAY BE HAD ON APPLICATION TO 

DIVISION OF INTERCOURSE AND EDUCATION 

CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE 

407 WEST II7TH STREET, NEW YORK CITY 

. 




The United States as a World Power 

AN INTERVIEW WITH 

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 

BY 

EDWARD MARSHALL 

Reprinted from The New York Times of May 16, 1915 

It was Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Co- 
lumbia University, who first predicted that in the 
course of this European war the United States of 
America would develop a world importance hitherto 
unknown to it. 

Since the interview in which he made that prediction 
exactly this has happened. So, many months after- 
ward, I went to him again with a request for an in- 
terpretation of his original statement in the light of 
new events. 

"You said that this war between other nations 
would make the United States for the first time a 
world power, " I suggested. " It has done that. Now 
what is the underlying significance of the event? " 

" That is a pretty large and a very delicate subject 
to discuss, " he answered. " When one speaks of the 
United States as a world power, and of its future op- 
portunities as such, one must stop to ask whether he 
is using the term ' world power ' in the military sense 
with reference to the rule of force, or in the moral 
sense, with reference to the rule of ideals and of law. 
The history of the world makes it pretty plain that 
there is a distinction between the two. 

" Our present-day philosophy of life makes it equally 
plain that it is world power resting on ideals and on 

[3] 



law that the United States should aim at — the world- 
power of the future — and not the sort of world power 
which rests on force — the world power of the past. 

" With the passing of the years, with the increase in 
area and the multiplication of population, the United 
States has become at once the largest, richest, and the 
most powerful exemplar of democratic institutions on 
the globe. 

" Any claim which it may have to being a world 
power today and any hope which it may have of in- 
creasing or extending this world power in future, must 
rest upon its being true to the ideals and aims of de- 
mocracy, not only in form but in spirit and in fact. 

' The very just indignation of the American people 
at the destruction of the Lusitania, involving, as it 
did, the loss of hundreds of lives of neutrals and non- 
combatants, including many women and children, as 
well as the inexplicable attack upon the American 
ship Gulflight," said he, "only emphasize the neces- 
sity of maintaining our attitude of strict neutrality 
and of enforcing the rights which attach to neutrals. 
To do this will of itself be a manifestation of world 
power on a great scale." 

" The present situation is very acute and very dif- 
ficult, but it ought not and I think will not be beyond 
the power of the American government and the 
American people to deal with it in a spirit of justice 
that will both emphasize and enforce our position as 
a neutral nation and resist any effort either to drive 
or to tempt us to join the ranks of the belligerents." 

America's Opportunity 

" Can we not say that the opportunity of the United 
States just now to exercise a peaceful power is greater 
than the opportunity ever confronting any nation to 
exercise military power ? " I suggested. 

[4] 



" Yes, I should think so, " President Butler 
answered. " It is a fact that the way in which the 
neutrality of the United States has been manifested 
in the present war has not wholly commended us as a 
people to any one of the belligerent powers. 

" This, perhaps, was to be expected ; but it would be 
unfortunate if any feeling of criticism of the United 
States for having done some things and for having 
omitted to do others, should extend to the point of 
weakening European confidence in the ability and 
willingness of the American people to do justice be- 
tween the belligerents and the policies they represent, 
when this war shall come to an end. 

" The notion that the present struggle is a European 
war, in which no one has any interest except the gov- 
ernments and citizens of the several belligerent 
powers, is grotesque. 

" It is a world war in which every neutral power 
is more or less involved and the huge cost of which 
every neutral power will be called upon to share more 
or less heavily. 

" It may be safely predicted that when the bills are 
all in and receipted a generation or two hence, the cost 
to the people of the United States will prove to have 
been stupendous. " 

Why It Is Our Duty to Do What We Can 

" All these are reasons why the world power of the 
American democracy ought of right to be exerted and 
should, as a matter of policy and of national interest, 
be exerted when hostilities shall end, to compose the 
differences and the difficulties out of which this war 
has grown; and they are also reasons why nothing 
should be done which will weaken our world influence. 

" It is a very difficult and delicate matter to suggest 

[51 



to another people that one's own form of government 
is better than that which, at the moment, they enjoy. 
This is something which the United States could not 
formally or officially do. 

" Nevertheless, it would be sheer hypocrisy to con- 
ceal the fact that the public opinion of the United 
States is substantially unanimous in holding that the 
peace of the world is more secure when foreign re- 
lations and foreign policies are determined and con- 
trolled by representatives of the people, than when 
these are wholly confided to dynasties or to diplomats, 
however beloved or however talented. 

" The democratic principle cannot be said to insure 
international peace, but with equal certainty it can be 
said to make impossible certain kinds of war. It makes 
impossible all those numerous wars that grow out of 
dynastic ambitions and policies, out of secret alliances 
and out of confidential understandings of one sort and 
another between monarchs and foreign offices. " 

Democratic Principles Decrease Chance of War 

" The democratic principle for which the United 
States stands and which, after allowing for all mis- 
takes and inequities, it has done so much to advance, 
diminishes the chance of conflict based upon difference 
in language, difference in religion and difference in 
race, by insisting that no one of these differences be 
given any recognition before the law. 

" It is obvious that if the United States is to achieve 
and exercise a world power based upon its sincere 
democracy, we must have a care that at home these 
principles are always kept clearly in mind and are not 
departed from in our own political practice. 

" We have among us a good many people, and some 
groups of importance and considerable size, that are 
not inclined to be any too particular about insisting 

[6] 



upon the application of these fundamental democratic 
principles, if, by overlooking them, they themselves 
can gain some immediate political or personal end. 

' To all such, it may be pointed out that while, of 
course, a nation must protect itself, morally, intellectu- 
ally, and physically, yet it must protect itself by the 
application of its fundamental principles and not by 
the denial or forgetfulness of them. " 

American Generosity and Sympathy Sure to Impress 

" One trait the people of the United States possess 
to an extent that never before has been recorded in 
the history of any nation, and that is the admirable 
trait of generosity and sympathy for the distressed, 
the afflicted, and the stricken in any part of the world. 
Recognition of this fact must add greatly to our world 
influence. 

" At the very time that some European observers 
have been denouncing the American people as mere 
traders, making money and gain out of the distressful 
conflict in Europe, those same American people have 
been pouring out not only millions of dollars, but life, 
energy, and service in the effort to carry food and 
clothing to the starving and ill-clad Belgians, to elimi- 
nate the fearful plague of typhus in Serbia, and to 
aid in giving the best medical and surgical service to 
the sick and wounded in the armies of Germany, Aus- 
tria, Russia, France, and Great Britain. 

" It may very well be doubted if anywhere in history 
there is recorded an equal display, prompt and over- 
whelming, of generous aid and tender human sym- 
pathy, regardless of the station, rank, nationality, or 
opinions of those who needed help. 

" That reveals a people playing the Good Samaritan 
on a huge scale and it illustrates what I mean by world 

[71 



leadership based on ideals. The nation whose people 
render services like these will never be forgotten in 
tens of thousands of villages and farm firesides all 
the way from the North Sea to the Caucasus. " 

" Are you willing, " I asked President Butler, " to 
tell how we should take advantage of the world power 
into which we have developed — to discuss what we 
ought to stand for, why we do not now stand for more, 
and how we could stand for most? " 

" If one is asked what power the United States can 
exert at the conclusion of this war, " he replied, " no 
definite answer can be given at the moment, because 
everything will depend upon which of the combatants 
is victorious. In any case, however, the United States 
ought to direct the attention of the nations now bel- 
ligerent to these specific points : 

Specific Points for International Consideration 

" First. — That the various Hague Conventions, sol- 
emnly entered into in 1899 and in 1907, have been vio- 
lated frequently since the outbreak of hostilities, and 
that, obviously, some greater and more secure sanction 
for such Conventions must be provided in the future. 

" Second. — That in not a few instances the rules and 
usages of international law have been thrown to the 
winds, to the discredit of the belligerents themselves 
and to the grave distress, physically and commercially, 
of neutral powers. 

" Of course everyone understands that international 
law is merely a series of conventions without other 
than moral sanction. If, however, the world has gone 
back to the point where a nation's plighted faith is not 
moral sanction enough, then that fact and its impli- 
cations ought to be clearly understood and appropriate 
punitive action provided for. 

[8] 



" Third. — That any attempt to submerge nationali- 
ties in nations other than their own is certain to re- 
sult in friction and conflict in the not distant future. 
Any attempt to create new nations, or to enlarge or 
diminish the area of nations, without having regard 
to nationality, is simply to organize a future war. 

" Fourth. — That the transfer of sovereignty over 
any given district or people without their consent, is 
certainly an unwise, and probably an unjust, action 
for any government to take, having regard for the 
peace and happiness of the world. 

" Fifth. — That the international organization which 
had been carried so far in such fields as maritime law, 
postal service, railway service, and international arbi- 
tration, should be taken up anew and pursued more 
vigorously, but upon a sounder and a broader foun- 
dation, and made a certain means of protecting the 
smaller and the weaker nations. 

" Sixth. — That competitive armaments, instead of 
being an assurance against war, are a sure cause of 
war and an equally certain preventive of those policies 
of social reform and advance that enlightened peoples 
everywhere are eager to pursue. 

" Everything would depend upon the sincerity, the 
good temper and the sympathy with which suggestions 
such as these were made and followed up. " 

" Are you willing to say that if the tendency toward 
a United States of Europe develops — and you were 
the first to predict it at the time of the outbreak of the 
war — it should be our especial duty to stimulate such 
a spread of democracy in any way which we could ? " 

How We Can Help Toward European Democracy 

" I should say, " said President Butler, " that if 
as some of us have hoped and felt — and as Mr. As- 

[9] 



quith, in one of the greatest speeches made since the 
war began, clearly indicated there is reason to hope — 
the nations of Europe may find some method after the 
war of so organizing as to develop a common will, then 
we should point out to them the lessons which the 
history of our own federal system can teach. 

" No one in his senses could suppose that Europe, 
with its varied races and languages, ever could be 
welded into such a national unit as the United States, 
all resting on a common English speech and the Eng- 
lish common law; but the principle which the United 
States Government exemplifies is applicable, in my 
judgment, mutatis mutandis, to a United States of 
Europe. 

' The beginnings of the central organ of the com- 
mon will would probably be very simple and very 
slight. They might be chiefly judicial in character ; if 
so, then so much the better. 

" Some of the Justices of the first United States Su- 
preme Court wanted to resign because no case came 
before the Court for a year after it was organized. 
They said there was no need for such a court, that 
there was nothing for it to do. 

" The world could very well afford to have Europe 
begin in the same simple way and trust to the force 
of ideas and the interest of nations in co-operation — 
their financial, their commercial, their intellectual in- 
terests — to strengthen and develop whatever organ 
they chose to create at the outset. " 

" Have not all the greatest achievements of the 
United States tended toward peace, even though they 
have been warlike ? " I asked. " Even the Spanish 
War was not an attack upon a people at peace, but a 
war for the purpose of stopping war." 

" The events of the early spring and the summer of 
1898 are sometimes spoken of as the Spanish- Ameri- 

[10] 



can War, " replied President Butler. " To me they 
have always seemed more like the doing of such work 
as the police and fire departments combined might be 
called upon to perform in a great city. 

;t What was done then by the United States was, 
to all intents and purposes, to suppress a riot and to 
put out a conflagration. If the United States had 
enriched itself as a result of that action by annexing 
the island of Cuba, the action itself would have lost all 
its moral significance. " 

Senator Root Responsible for the Piatt Amendment 

' Through the action taken at the instance of Sena- 
tor Teller of Colorado and that taken at the instance 
of Senator Piatt of Connecticut (although in fairness 
to both the living and the dead it ought to be said that 
the hand which drew the Piatt Amendment was that 
of Elihu Root) the United States made it plain that 
what it was doing was being done in the interest of 
the people of Cuba and in the interest of humanity. In 
the large sense, therefore, this whole undertaking was 
a policy making for peace, for good order, for human 
happiness. 

" In the same way, it was to a President of the 
United States and to his Secretary of State that the 
governments of Japan and Russia turned, in the 
spring of 1905, with a view to securing assistance in 
bringing the costly and bloody conflict to Manchuria 
to an end. 

" Both through its action in regard to Cuba and its 
action in regard to the Russo-Japanese War, to say 
nothing of its consistent attitude toward the govern- 
ment of the people of China, the United States has won 
the regard and respect of thoughtful and liberal- 
minded men in all parts of the globe. It is such acts as 

[11] 



these which promote world confidence in us and assure 
world power for us. 

" It is not possible to touch upon these topics without 
some mention of Mexico, where conditions are ex- 
tremely difficult and very perplexing. " 

What We Can Do for Mexico 

" There is no use now in discussing what might have 
been done three years ago or two years ago that would 
have led to an improvement in the existing situation. 

" The undisputed facts are that chaos rules in Mex- 
ico, that American lives have been sacrified and others 
are in danger, and that much property belonging to 
Americans has been damaged or destroyed, and more 
of it is still threatened with damage or destruction 
there. 

" Is it quite clear that the people of the United States 
have no duty whatever in regard to this matter, but 
should merely stand aside and let the various armed 
bands of Mexicans kill each other indefinitely, as well 
as destroy the lives and property, not only of Ameri- 
cans, but of citizens of European nations ? Are we or 
are we not our brothers' keepers ? 

' These questions are not to be lightly answered, for 
anything that would plunge us into war with the Mexi- 
can people, or anything that might possibly lead to an 
extension of our territory or wealth at their expense, 
would be deplorable, and perhaps disastrous to us. 

" Nor could we take any line of action that would 
expose us to suspicion in the minds of other American 
republics on the ground that the United States, as an 
Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Celtic nation, was oppressing 
a Latin people or aggrandizing itself at their expense. 

" The policy that most commends itself to my judg- 
ment, if a task similar to that performed seventeen 
years ago in Cuba ultimately becomes necessary, is to 

[12] 



communicate our plans and policies to the govern- 
ments of the other American Republics and to ask the 
co-operation of at least some of them— for example, 
Argentina, Brazil, Chili, Uruguay, and Peru— in put- 
ting into effect whatever policies of a police character 
were jointly determined to be necessary in the interest 
of civilization and that of the Mexican people them- 
selves. 

" If it be objected that no one of these American 
republics has any direct interest in Mexico, the answer 
is that we have a very direct interest in having them 
have a sufficient interest in Mexico to protect us from 
misunderstanding and unfriendly criticism on their 
own part." 

To Get South American Help the Wisest Way 

" It is earnestly to be hoped that the Mexican people 
will speedily find some way of restoring orderly gov- 
ernment for themselves, but it must be confessed that 
every week that passes makes the prospect of this seem 

less likely. 

" Of course, it is not possible for a policeman or a 
fireman to attempt to settle a row in the street without 
running some risk of getting hurt, but that risk would 
be reduced to a minimum if the confidence and co-op- 
eration of a half dozen other American republics 
should be secured before the task was undertaken at 

all. 

" Such an act would, of itself, be an illustration of 
what is meant by exercising world power. It would 
illustrate the value of bringing other free and en- 
lightened peoples to our side to perform a public- 
spirited act, and it would illustrate and emphasize the 
moral purpose of performing that act in the interest of 
Mexico and the Mexican people without any thought 
or purpose of self-aggrandizement. It would give a 

[13] 



new and generous interpretation to the Monroe Doc- 
trine. 

" Our people have not yet appreciated how much we 
need, and would profit by, closer friendship and fuller 
understanding with the peoples of the other American 
republics. Every one of the efforts now being made 
to bring those peoples nearer to us, to understand more 
completely their point of view, their history, their 
literature, their institutions, and every effort to break 
down the barrier of language which separates us, de- 
serves the heartiest support. The relation we seek 
with them is not a relation in which we are to exercise 
power, but one in which we and they together are to 
exercise an influence that is higher and better than 
mere power, because it is the outgrowth of our com- 
mon devotion to democratic institutions and our com- 
plete and sympathetic understanding of what the very 
word ' America ' typifies and signifies. " 

Other Indications of World Power 

" And there are other things that indicate a growth 
of such world power in the hands of the United States. 
Robert College at Constantinople, on the banks of the 
Bosporus, and the American Protestant College at 
Beirut in Syria, are two of the most extraordinary ex- 
amples of American influence anywhere in the world. 
Practically every leader of the liberal movement in 
Bulgaria has been educated in Robert College, which is 
supported entirely by American money, and the most 
enlightened young Turks, Arabs, and Greeks are to 
be found among the 400 or 500 students in the Syrian 
Protestant College at Beirut. 

" These institutions represent the New England col- 
lege transferred to the shores of the Mediterranean 
and the banks of the Bosporus, and they are teaching, 
not only the usual letters, science and philosophy, but 

[14] 



American ideals, American thought, American insti- 
tutions to the young men who are shaping or are go- 
ing to shape the civilization of the Eastern Mediter- 
ranean countries. " 

Industrial as Well as Political World Power 

" A great many of our European friends believe, 
as I myself believe, that a concomitant and necessary 
element of international peace is industrial peace, and 
we in the Carnegie Endowment have sent to Europe 
for the last year or more, first on our own initiative 
and then in response to many questions, all the in- 
formation that we could get about Mr. Henry Ford's 
profit sharing undertaking at Detroit, and also about 
the United States Steel Corporation's capital plan for 
caring for and helping its workers. 

" The United States Steel Corporation issues an 
illustrated monthly journal. Sometimes I have writ- 
ten to the Steel Corporation and obtained several hun- 
dred of these to send to as many European addresses, 
because they contained striking pictures of workmen's 
cottages with little gardens and vines, and showed 
the admirable conditions under which the Steel Cor- 
poration is helping its men to live. I have secured 
as many copies as I could of the literature pertaining 
to Mr. Ford's profit sharing scheme and have used 
them in a similar manner. And that, too, helps build 
up world power for the United States. 

" This is what I mean by the peaceful infiltration 
of ideas. It goes much farther than the work of dip- 
lomatist; it works away down under the surface of 
life." 

" We really have before us, then, a very great op- 
portunity to promote international peace throughout 
the world? " 

" Yes. " 

[15] 



" We have an indirect and somewhat indefinite, but 
none the less real opportunity to promote industrial 
peace throughout the world by the force of example. 
Big things are going to be worked out there in Detroit 
and elsewhere. That is true, isn't it ?" 

" Certainly. " 

" The Mexican situation confronts us directly, does 
it not — the question of peace beyond the Rio 
Grande?" 

" Yes. " 

" And if we promote and truly encourage friendly 
feeling from and toward the South American repub- 
lics, we can insure on this continent something which 
would be infinitely better than a United States of the 
two Americas, in the form of a double continent in 
which war is practically certain never to occur ? " 

" Yes. And there is another thing. We can do 
what has been in the back of the heads of a number 
of South American statesmen. We can unite with 
the South American republics to say, ' Now, you gen- 
tlemen of Europe, if you must fight, we serve notice 
that you have got to fight on your side of the world. 
You must not do any more fighting off the Falkland 
Islands, or in the waters of Chili, or in the Caribbean 
Sea, or anywhere else about here. Please stay on 
your side of the Atlantic when you go to war. ' The 
doctrine of Mare Liberum is in need of restatement 
so far as vessels of war are concerned. " 



(Copyrighted, 1915, by Edward Marshal 1 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

I ill ii in in mi mil 



013 787 129 4 



[16] 



013 787 129 4 f 



Hollinger Corp. 
pH8.5 



